Smoked Salmon

[AggieBQ72]

I had dinner at a Texas Land and Cattle Restaurant in Dallas yesterday and had their Smoked Salmon.  I've looked on the forum and at Old's place for a recipie.  What I find seems to be for fresh Salmon.  I saw some salmon filets (frozen) at Sam's that I want to try.  Is there a need to brine that?  Anyone have any suggestions on smoking times and how to keep this moist and not have it dry out as it appears to be about 1/2" in thickness.

[stillsmoking]

Good morning Aggie.  The fillets will work fine, I prefer to fillet my fish most time before smoking and often freeze them before I am ready to use.  It is also somewhat of a spring and fall cleanout of the freezer, take what's left and smoke it!  Yes, do brine!  There are quite a few good posts that detail smoking salmon on the Forum.  Would suggest that you look at Kummok's fine demonstrations and explanations but there are others also.  Look under the FISH header, go crazy and let us all know how it turns out.

[pensrock]

I really love Kummoks recipe. If the fillets are thin then follow the directions using the shorter period of the times listed.

[Kummok]

I'm with SS on the "leftovers get smoked" behavior, Aggie. I smoke most silver salmon but routinely wait until new fish season before smoking up Kings and Reds that are still left in freezer. Got some 07 Copper River Reds that are destined for smoker in the next month or so.

Keeping hot smoked salmon moist is a balance between the type of salmon, how long you keep it in pellicle stage, how long you smoke it, and what temps. I'm just hazarding a guess here but if you got it from Sam's Club, it's most likely farmed Atlantic (soylent green to me! ;) :D ) and less oily than Kings/Reds so drying/smoking/temps will be shorter/lower than what you might use for oilier salmon. I'm thinking that you might want to go slightly tacky on the pellicle, nor more than 3.5 hours on the smoke and more time at lower temps w/ last 30-45 mins at highest temp.....The good thing about smoking salmon (even soylent green) is that even the mistakes are delicious!

[westexasmoker]

Small batch of Kummok salmon (soylent green  ;D) you do what you gots to do!  Waiting for the pellicle to form!  Kummok my hats off to ya for sharing this receipe with us, I can't seem to keep any of it around, between friends and co-workers (what this batch is for) theres never any for me!   :D  Oh well, guess that means its time to do another batch! (And not tell anyone!)



C

[westexasmoker]

Forgot about the completed pic....3 hours at 100, 1 hour at 120, 1 hour at 140 and 1 hour at 175.  Total smoke time was 3 hours.  All vacsealed and resting in the fridge!



C

[Gizmo]

Good thing I was chowing on some myself today or I'd have a big chomp mark on my LCD screen.  ;)

[DrtiBird]

I had dinner at a Texas Land and Cattle Restaurant in Dallas yesterday and had their Smoked Salmon.  I've looked on the forum and at Old's place for a recipie.  What I find seems to be for fresh Salmon.  I saw some salmon filets (frozen) at Sam's that I want to try.  Is there a need to brine that?  Anyone have any suggestions on smoking times and how to keep this moist and not have it dry out as it appears to be about 1/2" in thickness.

Aggie,
I'm land-locked and the only salmon I get is either frozen or farmed.  My fav recipe is from KDX at
http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?p=162#post162

I did cut the recipe down to 1/4 (with only 1/4 lb salt) since the original made quite a bit and I have only done small amounts of salmon at a time.  KDX's didn't require brining but it did require an overnight stay in the refrigerator.  Turned out great!

KDX's recipe doesn't specify cooking times, but I used the Bradley recommendation:

Smoke using the following Bradley Smoking guideline:
100°-120°F for 1-2 hours, then increase to
140° for 2-4 hours, then increase to
175° for 1-2 hours to finish


Enjoy!